Unverified Voracity Didn't Listen

Moderate ado about nothing. So some guy sued the regents for that "informal" meeting that went down a couple weeks ago that discussed either earth-shaking sanctions or lopping off the heads of the people in compliance who screwed up the logging, depending on which probably-baseless internet speculation you prefer. Many internet lawyers have weighed in on the suit. The consensus appears to agree with this university spokesman:

University spokesman Rick Fitzgerald told the Daily the regents meeting didn't violate any regulations set forth in the Michigan Open Meetings Act.

Fitzgerald said at the time the meeting did not fall under the act because it was an “informal” meeting of the Board of Regents, not a “closed” meeting as set forth in the act.

Additionally, Fitzgerald said the meeting was not even classifiable as a meeting as defined in the act. The Michigan Open Meetings Act defines a meeting as “the convening of a public body at which a quorum is present for the purpose of deliberating toward or rendering a decision on a public policy.”

Fitzgerald said because the meeting was not subject to the act, no meeting minutes were kept.

There's also an interesting thread on the board from a guy who just had an in depth conversation with a newspaper editor who recently filed a similar suit:

a winner in this lawsuit would get access to the information and reimbursement for attorney fees. However, these cases can last months (my contact mentioned legal fees had exceeded $40k for one case) and the reason a singular person may not pursue this for the “freedom of information”. Also, it is possible a judge may not rule in your favor due to opinion on if the procedures where properly followed and you are simply out the money with no access to the meeting minutes. Again, if I have other litigation pending, maybe I take the chance. If not, I would be an idiot since, even if I believe I am 100% right, I risk that a judge does not see my side of the case. I am also either representing myself or have a lawyer doing some pro-bono work since I would not want to bankroll this.

Having just heard a significant amount of information on this type of lawsuit from my newspaper editor contact, I am curious to understand the real motivations here. I struggle with the idea that a random person who reportedly loves the program and is only motivated by that he “…hopes and prays the university officials follow the rules…”.

Even if the suit has merit, the results of the investigation are due to be announced in a month or so, long before the thing could wind its way through the courts, and the only thing it would turn up would be records of the meeting-type object that evidently don't exist.

Folk interested in who this Very Concerned Alum is need only hop in the super-stalky thread on the message board. He's a litigation-happy Granholm political appointee currently mulling a re-election bid. Media reports consistently mention his status as an "alum," but he's not really:

Education: Graduated 1997, Renaissance High School, Detroit; BA in political science, University of Michigan-Dearborn, 2002; nearly two years at Thomas Cooley Law School, Oakland University

No offense to any satellite campus alums out there, but that's like claiming you're an Illinois alum when you went to UIC.

Would this be fake? Dolphins beatwriter Armando Salguero is advocating that Miami snatch Brandon Graham at #12—something that could actually give me an NFL team to root for if Ted Ginn gets deported—and runs a quote or two from BG. This would shatter the FAKE scale if accomplished, even at a combine:

He expects to run in the 4.5s at the Indianapolis Combine next week. And he loves the idea of playing 3-4 outside linebacker.

"Oh yeah, I feel real good," Graham says about dropping in coverage. "I've been working on my hips, working on my drops every day in practice for Michigan ... With a little coaching from the NFL guys, I believe I can get it done."

Stephen Ross now owns the Fins, so if he's as terrible an owner as Daniel Snyder this is definitely happening. In other BG news, New Era scouting says the similarities between Graham and Lamarr Woodley are "almost scary."

2. Boise State

Analysis: Want to know why the Broncos are such a trendy pick to bust into the BCS title game next season? …

So how did the evaluators at Rivals -- and Scout and SI and everywhere else -- so badly underestimate this class? Simple. Boise State doesn't have a huge fan base. There aren't as many potential subscribers, so, from a business perspective, it doesn't make sense to spend as much time evaluating Boise State recruits as Alabama or Texas recruits. That's probably the biggest flaw in recruiting rankings; the teams outside the traditional power structure can be vastly underestimated. Because if you look only at the teams that traditionally finish in the top 15, the rankings are usually pretty accurate.

While I agree that bigger schools get a fudge factor Boise State doesn't*, it's virtually impossible to compare this class of Bronco starters to any other because all it's shown is vast superiority to the rest of the WAC. Boise has played one BCS schools the last two years, and while the Broncos beat pretty good Oregon teams both years that is nowhere near the sort of baseline you'd need to make that sort of assertion. If Cincinnati had played TCU and Boise State played Florida, are we having this conversation?

*(If Jake Ryan had committed to Boise State does he have three stars today? Probably not.)

Going back to the inconsistent and inconveniently-located well?UMHoops and the Wolverine Blog have a two-part basketball recruitingQ&A session that's required reading if you're interested in the future of Michigan basketball. There's a lot of Zeigler talk, and most of it has the same understated foreboding I've got: I don't think he ends up at Michigan. Given that and the lack of an official offer to Jon Horford, I thought this part was the most interesting:

Would Beilein potentially look to dip into Europe for another prospect?

This is an idea that I have seen thrown around. It makes sense because Beilein has looked across the pond for talent before. At West Virginia he brought in German forward Johannes Herber, who started every game in his West Virginia career and graduated with a 4.0 GPA. A couple years back he tried to bring in Robin Benzing, a 6-foot-10 German wing but he came up one question short on the SAT.

Seriously: do not look into Robin Benzing if you have a hammer handy. Trust me when I say that after he couldn't get eligible at Michigan, he suffered a series of improbable injuries and is now a librarian. Under no circumstances type his name into Google. If you defy these proclamations, you are required to immediately watch this.

There.

I might be wrong about this, but my recollection of Benzing's recruitment was that the holdup wasn't academics but his amateur standing. Though he himself had not signed a contract, he had played on teams with professionals. At the time this was a no-no in the eyes of the NCAA and a major problem for coaches looking to extract talent from Europe. By August, however, the NCAA will abolish this rule for most sports, including basketball. This will make it a lot easier to grab European kids, and since Europe specializes in 6'10" guys who play like small forwards it's a place where Beilein could make some hay. We might see Horford in limbo until Beilein takes a trip to Europe in early April.

Last time I checked, the degrees handed out at U-M-Dearborn and Flint say "Michigan" on them and do not designate the campus. I appreciate the fact that Ann Arbor is the mother ship, but that kind of statement- as you glossed over the offensiveness- is a bit arrogant to U-M graduates from satellite campuses.

I guess it is more important to distinguish what you do with that education that matters, anyway, something lost on the subject of your ire.

I never thought that I'd read something this ignorant on a Michigan blog or message board, especially after all of the in-fighting that has gone on the past two years. Are we really going to have Michigan alum attacking Michigan alum over which campus they graduated from? Congratulations - a new way for Michigan to fragment itself from within has been found. I'm stunned and very sad.

The Regents are selling a product and clearly they found a loyal customer. Attaching the "University of Michigan" brand name to a satellite campus probably sounds a lot better than Southeast Michigan State Teacher's College or the University of Flint, but it doesn't mean you attended the University of Michigan.

I would rather ask every single employer and every single graduate school admissions officer in the country whether the schools are the same.

Lots of people didn't go to Michigan, including a ton of very cool Wolverine fans who frequent this board. I welcome all supporters of U-M athletics no matter what college they may or may not have attended. However, acting like the schools in Flint and Dearborn have any meaningful connection with the University of Michigan (aside from sharing a few of the same words in their name) shows a complete disconnect with reality.

I have hired, or have been responsible for organizations which have hired, hundreds of people. I can tell you from vast personal experience that employers look well beyond where someone graduated.

You shouldn't think that waiving a degree from UM-A2 in an employers face will make them swoon. It won't. You better come to the table with more than that or the people from these "inferior" schools will eat your lunch.

Give me someone who worked full time and was successful in school over an over-privelaged kid from an ivy-league school any day. The person who had to work and sacrafice for their education will outwork and outperform them every time.

While I know nothing about you other than what you just posted, I would be inclined not to hire you. You come across as arrogant and having an over inflated opinion or yourself and your education. However, what bothers me the most is your disloyalty and how you look down upon your fellow alumni. To consider M-Dearborn and Flint as somehow beneath you and Ann Arbor tells me something about you. It tells me the animosity and accompanying disruptions you would create on whatever team you work with would far outweigh the value of any knowledge and skills you would bring to the table.

We employers are much smarter than you think. We not only want skilled people, but people who can work well with others. Arrogance and pomposity are not traits which are highly valued. Think about that the next time you denegrate one or your own.

Thanks for the free career advice. I don't know anything about you but since we're making assumptions about each other, I'm going to assume you are an insecure moron. People who went to UM-Flint or UM-Dearborn or UM-East Grand Rapids are not my fellow alumni. They went to a completely different school than I did. Everyone knows that. I just checked those usnews rankings for the first time since my undergrad days and see that once again the University of Michigan is viewed as one of the top 5 public schools in the country and one of the top 30 or so national universities. UM-Flint is ranked on par with schools like EMU and Ferris State. Should Eastern and Ferris grads be considered "Michigan alumni" as well, simply because that happens to be the state where their schools are located? Thinking one school is far superior to the other isn't arrogance, it is fact.

All I said is that everyone in the world (except maybe a handful of bitter satellite campus alums) knows that the University of Michigan is not the same as these satellite campuses. That isn't a knock on those schools or the people who went there, but it is reality.

Good luck stocking your company with people who make excuses for why they aren't successful. I'm sure all of us "arrogant" Michigan grads are very disappointed we can't be a part of your super-duper team.

you are arrogant, and you are the stereotype for everything that Michigan haters point to as to why they dislike the university. Maybe one day you will realize that where you go to school does not make you great, it is how you represent yourself and your school to the world. For me, I certainly hope you are not a typcial alumni, but the exception.

So, I am arrogant because I think the University of Michigan is a far superior educational institution to UM-Flint or UM-Dearborn (or MSU for that matter)? Newsflash, everyone who has ever graduated from Michigan, every objective ranking of colleges/universities, and virtually everyone in the world who didn't attend one of those satellite campuses agrees with me.

You on the other hand, are an asshole who assumed that people who go to inferior educational institutions must be better people who work harder, "sacrifice for their education", and work better with others. Conversely, you characterize people who attended Michigan and other top-flight schools as spoiled or lucky (which I guess makes it easier to stomach not getting in).

If Michigan haters dislike me because I went to a better school than them, make more money than them, sing better, am one of the best dancers and one of the best looking mother fuckers you've ever seen, then I'm OK with that.

is a guy that moves beyond a factual argument and starts being a dick. You had the facts on your side, instead of stopping there, you became a dick. The facts can get overshadowed--tone matters, especially when the other side is saying that you are being arrogant. That's where you proved him right.

I wasn't trying to persuade anyone that the University of Michigan is a better school than UM-Flint or UM-Dearborn. I was just stating facts and then this asshole tried to give me a lecture about how to succeed in the workplace as if I'm 18 years old and give two shits what he has to say, so I brought the hammer down in what I thought was a relatively mild-mannered and slightly humorous fashion.

demonstrating arrogance within your argument--not just a factual recitation. that's where you lost me. But I'll drop it, and you were correct in your argument. On a note that mildly supportive of his argument however, that link someone provided showed that Dearborn is ranked higher in U.S. News than MSU--I think we can all agree that that is humorous and satisfying to us all. And shows that the satellite campus is still better than sparty.

that the schools aren't the same. Agreed, to an extent. Which is why credits are acceptable for all three on a degree. Or classes are taken by A2 students at either. Michigan-lite is still a better option than a couple of other Big Ten schools I know.

Maybe my 15 minutes of checking are flawed, but in looking at the University of Michigan - Dearborn website, if you want to joing the University of Michigan Alumni Association, you are directed to the same Organization as the Ann Arbor Campus website directs you.

This is also how the University of Washington Alumni Association works. My MBA is from a satellite campus of the UW, but I'm a member of the University of Washington Alumni Association.

So I think I have to agree that Brian did call out sections of Michigan Alumni that didn't need to be called out just because one jerk filed an idiotic law suit to probably just gain notoriety for his political career.

One big reason students choose Dearborn or Flint over Ann Arbor is not academic but financial. Dearborn has both night classes and a wealth of Co-op programs to help students who say have a wife and one year old child to take care of in addition to their classes, homework, etc.

I know that's why my father chose Dearborn.

I'm glad too, because if he didn't get his engineering degree, he never could have afforded to pay my tuition and housing for the Ann Arbor campus.

But they are physically different locations and print that location on the degree.

If a person has not been to all of the campuses and taken or proctored classes, then how can they make a blanket statement. I attended Flint and Ann Arbor. Ann Arbor is a different environment and the competition was tougher, but the course work was about the same.

If the degrees were different and/or there were different Alumni Associations, different Regents, and different presidents - there would be a better argument.

they are all the same insomuch as every student at each campus is attending the University of California.

The primary difference there is that the University of California is an abstract concept and the world at large knows that that name belongs to multiple campuses. The world at large associates the University of Michigan with a single campus in that system. If we want to get technical, every student at every campus is attending the University of Michigan... it's hard to accept that because the University of Michigan == the Ann Arbor campus in our minds. But in reality, it's more than that.

You can apply for "associate membership" to the U-M alumni association even if you have never set foot on campus. Even to be given "regular alumni" status you just have to have attended class for one semester. At least at U-M, you have to pay to be an alumni association member and they aren't going to turn away potential customers.

EDIT: And obviously you can charge more for a Washington or Michigan alumni membership than for one specific to a satellite campus

Like the example Brian used, my fiancee went to UIC for undergrad, and she tells people she went to University of Illinois. She even told my mom that she's "Big Ten girl." Although her diploma does say "University of Illinois" (it doesn't say Chicago anywhere) I like to remind her that she really didn't go to U of I.

Hey, you Dearborn and Flint guys - don't get so offended. My brother went to WMU, and he's as big an M fan as any. My boss at work (and some of my coworkers) went to schools that many of you probably haven't heard of and they make great money. Nobody is saying that you are an inferior person because you didn't go to Ann Arbor.

I think the point Brian was trying to make wasn't that the various satellite campuses are not part of the UM family, but that the portrayal of this individual as an "UM alum" is a bit misleading. The guy is from a completely different branch of the University than the one at the heart of this investigation, would likely have never cared about this meeting if it had been disclosed through regular channels, and likely only made this an issue in order to support his own political future. Yet in the way it was framed in the article, Mr. Davis sounds like some well-known alum who loves the University so much that it just breaks his heart to see them not follow the rules.

Is Beilein jinxed on post recruits or what? Benzing was ruled ineligible; Cronin got hurt (possibly ending his career); Morgan tore up his knee before his frosh season. Even preferred walk-on Puls had to leave the program for some reason.

Any suspension related to playing with professionals had not been decided. The conventional thinking was that he may have had to sit out a year due to the team he played on but he would have been able to redshirt. In this scenario I think he would have enrolled. When he came up short on the SAT, he would have had to go to prep school and he wasn't going to do that when he could play pro in Europe.

Mabye I missed something, but I didn't come away pessimistic (or optimistic) from anything in those articles...As for Benzing, I'd love to see what he can do in a Michigan uniform but those highlights didn't make me cry (on the outside).

Thanks Brian for taking that point on. The madness of the politically correct impulse lately to equate a 11-1 or 12-0 record from a non-BCS conference and compare it to a top BCS conference continues. The WAC has had fewer players drafted into the NFL--consistently--than the MAC, for God's sake. If Central wins the MAC next year at 12-0, does anyone seriously think their talent is equivalent? Face it, the players are ranked lower at BSU because (in general) they are less talented, period.

This is not an argument against Boise being in the BCS bowls or rankings. But recruiting ratings have been proved time and time again to have validity (correlation, not causation to being a good team, or a guy's chances to be an elite player or NFL draftee). Between that and NFL talent evaluations that is the only objective data we have. And it only points in one direction.

(Laughs) “It’s huge. Hopefully those were going to be two very good players for us at this time, with their size. We’re probably one SAT question away and an injury away from having that type of presence.”

that he was rule ineligible because he played semi-pro ball and he had a contract at the time. NCAA denied his eligibility but a year later changed the rule that a player could still be eligible to play NCAA basketball. Benzing would be a good addition to our team. He would be a perfect compliment to Sims at 4 position and allows Novak to play the 3.